Rise of the Night Witch

Chapter 2.4 - Draconic War

Recap: Marissa and Darcy had just come into the Salem Society's hidden village when Grief Eaters suddenly started attacking and Marissa passed out.

"Is the attack over? Please, tell me it's over!"

Voices murmured around me as I slumbered. The sweet scent of caramel and chocolate pleased my nose while warm, comfortable air thawed me up after the Grief Eaters had frozen me cold. It was so embarrassing. I've trained so hard, yet I was every bit as small, weak, and helpless as when I first saw the Grief Eaters in the park. Now, here I was, lying around with an aching head, cushioned by an unfamiliar person's lap.

I shuddered as the whiskers of my adorable familiar tickled my face.

"Master, master!" Siris told me. "There's a wolf here!"

My eyes shot open. I jumped to my feet like a soldier during a military exercise, but the sharp pain erupting from my brain made it hard to stand.

"Careful, careful!" an elderly male voice said behind me.

My vision dimmed. I heard Isa's voice. "Took you a while to wake up, Mars! I knew you were hiding something from me!"

Then, I looked around and she was nowhere to be seen. Just an illusion.

I was on the inside of the gingerbread mansion. People sat all around me on wooden stools and tables resembling oversized donuts or lollipops in their architecture and paint-coloration. Chocolate glaze peeled off from the walls, revealing that, underneath its tastiness, this mansion was reinforced with marble to survive the storm.

Besides all those tables with food extended a recreational area with a caramel-painted dancefloor. Plentiful species had gathered here to seek shelter and company in our secret community. Humans, dwarves, lizard-people, fish-people resembling H.P. Lovecraft's Deep Ones, and even friggin' Bigfoot were here. Darcy sat in a corner, cooling her head from an injury she received outside. Her aside, I saw nobody I knew. If Isa could only be here. Or Simon. (Okay, maybe not Isa, this place had more sugar than was healthy for her).

"You have grown quite a lot since I last smelled you," the elderly male voice behind me said again. "I do not understand why you feel the need to come dressed like a pagan witch, but your mother liked doing the same and it is not up to me to cast the first stone."

I turned around. He was a Hispanic man in his fifties though he looked handsome in a silver fox sort of way, and he wore a cassock with a crucifix well visible near his collar. His dark clerical coat looked crinkled and torn as if he had worn it for a long time and couldn't afford a new one. The table he sat around was different from the others. It was close to the wall, next to the buffet, and instead of having any food or beverages, it only had a small box and a tiny cash register next to it.

Siris snarled when he saw the man and raised his hair on his back in a way cats only did when they encountered water.

"Child, there is no reason for you to fear me," he said.

My body trembled with nerves.

The man reached over to the buffet and handed me a small plate from his table with pineapples, pumpkin pieces, and other fruits I couldn't resist. Did this guy research my favorite foods to poison me? No way was I going to bite. Never accept food in the fairy realm.

"Do you not recognize me?" he asked. "I am Marco Aguilar. I was a friend of your mother. We saw each other although you might have been too small to remember."

Siris snarled again.

"My familiar doesn't like you," I said.

He put his plate with the fruits down. "It's okay. I don't like myself either. They kicked me out of the church for being the unholy monster that I am. If this is what God wants to me, I must accept this."